relationship

View from the railroad bridge in Rosendale, New York, 2007. Photo by Eric Francis.

Planet Waves by Eric Francis
 
The other day, an email came floating into my inbox from a website called Care2, a green-styled corporate site purportedly dedicated to saving the world, claiming 12.5 million subscribers. The subject header of the email read, "Monogamy vs. Polyamory: Do Open Relationships Work?"

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/monogomy-polyamory.html

Naturally, I thought: this ought to be interesting.
 
The writer titled her analysis like a boxing match or a legal case. Mono versus Poly is now in session! All Rise! The article commenced as such (literally, its first words): "Non-monogamy is about one thing -- sex. And sex is good."
 
(You can tell she learned her writing style from The Bible.)
 
It went downhill from there, fast. Faster than I thought possible without jet propulsion and a lot of lube. "And sex with different people -- either concurrently or over the course of a lifetime -- is good too. Sex is so good that some people are addicted to it. Sex makes people do crazy things and it makes people feel amazing things. I love it just as much as anyone else, but there is more to life than sex."

By Millie Jackson

Although contentious, commonly used terms in polyamory are “primary”, “secondary” and “tertiary” which represent different levels of relationships. The controversy stems from how the terms are used and if they imply status for lovers or simply reflect the degree to which a lover is involved with the day-to-day life of a partner. Many people object to the hierarchical implications but begrudgingly use the terms because of a lack of good alternatives.

“Primaries” typically live together, share expenses, may raise children together and, whether married or not, are usually overtly acknowledged by friends, family, co-workers and the like as being a couple. “Secondaries” tend to be romantically and sexually involved without sharing as much of the practicalities of day-to-day living associated with a “primary” relationship and may not be publically acknowledged as lovers. “Tertiaries” have even less if any involvement in day-to-day living, often live out-of-town and/or have other circumstances that cause contact to be infrequent, sometimes with visits limited to a few times a year or less.

I realize that I'm a couple days late by blogging standards, but I still want to join Anita Wagner, Alan, and Loving More in cheering for the polyamorous threesome on The Daily Show last Monday:

The poly folks come in at 3:10, but the whole clip is a good analysis of the marriage debates.

As the comments on Poly in the News agree (including one from George and Joy Reagan, the couple featured),  The Daily Show did an impressive job of showing the poly interviewees as articulate, well-adjusted, sexy people, and getting its laughs at the expense of professional-comedian Jason Jones and his mock-sensationalism instead.

By Millie Jackson

I continue to be very close with an ex girlfriend. We were partnered in what was my last monogamous relationship.  After four years together, we attended a workshop on polyamory at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.  This gave us a context and the vocabulary to begin seriously discussing the prospect of opening our relationship.  Although we agreed that polyamory aligned with our philosophical and spiritual beliefs, we didn’t know how to access the poly life-style.  Our relationship ultimately ended after almost eight years together before we had the opportunity to explore polyamory.

There were ups and downs throughout the break-up.  Since we were financially enmeshed and shared a lease on a house that was our home and our businesses, this process dragged out for an excruciating six months.  This emotionally challenging period eventually led to us taking much needed time apart without any contact.  This was difficult given that we had been not only lovers but best friends, roommates, business associates, and travel companions.  We did everything together--we shared expenses, shared meals, and shared a level of intimacy we had never known before.

Last weekend I went to a panel question-and-answer session geared toward newbies in the kink Scene.  And the only question to specifically address non-monogamy was, "How do you deal with jealousy?"  Which is the same first question I've gotten from most of my monogamous friends, and the same question that dominates a healthy percentage of polyamory discussion groups.  It's an obvious question and an extremely legitimate one.  But I don't understand how jealousy merits such be-all-end-all importance.

I don't pretend to be somehow immune to jealousy; of course I've been jealous of lover's other lovers before, and it's a miserable feeling.  But then I have two options, which are: (1) Deal with it; or (2) Tell my husband and boyfriend that I want to be monogamous, in which case I would have to break up with at least one of them.  And in the last three and a half years, there has never been a split-second that I honestly thought Option #2 could be less heartbreaking or melodramatic for me than dealing with jealousy.

By Millie Jackson

I am a literalist when it comes to polyamory—a self-proclaimed poly-purist.  Since the word contains “amory” from the Latin “amor” meaning love, love is literally a defining characteristic of polyamory.  A common definition for polyamory is the concept of being open to having more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with knowledge and consent of all partners involved.  There are other styles of non-monogamy and various ways to engage in open relationships that are not polyamorous.

Though we often contrast and compare polyamory to monogamy, the truest comparison would be between polyamory and mono-amory—the arguably rare state of loving only one partner throughout a lifetime. Another challenge with comparing polyamory to monogamy is that a relationship can be truly monogamous but devoid of love.

Polyamory is a love-style more so than a life-style. One of my pet peeves as an activist for polyamory is when the word is used to describe emotionally disengaged encounters. Everyone is certainly entitled to their own approach to relationships and to how and why they have sex, but calling it polyamory doesn’t make sense if it is not amorous. Obviously, we aren’t going to immediately be in love with everyone we date. It doesn’t usually work that way for monogamists or polyamorists, but polyamory is about having the intention to cultivate an emotional relationship. I would love to see clearer distinctions made among different forms of non-monogamy so myths and misunderstandings are not perpetuated.

Backstory

Photo by Eric Francis.

It is some months after these events; I’ve lost count.  Not so many, let’s see—this was in September, and now it is November—so just under one season ago. It seems so distant and it seems like last week at the same time.

I remember that night as Siobhan and I walked across the playa. It was a journey on the surface of a different planet than the one we had come from, and neither of us forgot the image of the city as a temple complex. I described it when I had settled down a little. My description resembled both a feeling and a visual she experienced at the same time.

Fun Sway, who said she would be back to try that thing, thanked us for sharing the experience, and she plunged into the night. I was one to one with Siobhan and aware of the warmest space of acceptance by another person, safe and embracing. She didn’t need to speak to me and I didn’t need her too. This encouraged me to hold my silence and let so much that I was feeling swim around and find its world within me.

I was at my boring desk job today, and my co-workers were talking about the Tiger Woods scandal in my earshot.  They know a lot more than I do about the Tiger Woods scandal, because I haven't read a single article past the headline - because I really don't care.  I don't play or watch golf, and most athlete/Hollywood celebrity scandals are tediously interchangeable, and Tiger Woods and I just don't have much influence over each other's lives.  I don't feel a need to start caring about him now; if you're reading this outside of the U.S. and don't know what I'm talking about, Google him.

But one of my co-worker's more incredulous comments made me cringe with silent frustration: "And he's married to a supermodel!! And he cheated on her anyway!"

Okay, so here's the thing about sex with more than one person: Sometimes it really has nothing whatsoever to do with the original partner.  I'll admit, of course, sometimes it does.  Sometimes people first fall out of love with their "primary" significant other for any number of examples of incompatibility, and they stick around a doomed relationship either because they're too afraid to be alone until they find the next partner, or because they're too afraid to hurt the other person's feelings (which invariably backfires), or because of habit.  Then they lie to their partners or spite them, which is where the real betrayal happens.  I take it (from osmosis) that Tiger Woods lied to a lot of women, which makes him a liar.  The women who trusted him have every right to feel outrage toward a liar, and I wouldn't begrudge any self-righteous co-worker banter over that.

By Millie Jackson

A common argument against polyamory is that it is not a healthy life-style for the children involved. I have never found this argument to hold up. Although I do not have children, I have been involved with people who do. What I have witnessed are very content children getting a lot of positive attention. They are being raised in a diverse and accepting environment while witnessing communication, negotiation, and a team mentality. Often times, they are completely unaware that their “extended family” includes partners of their mommy and/or daddy.

The same guidelines of what is appropriate in regards to what children see and hear about sex are basically the same whether parents are monogamous or polyamorous. How parents portray sex and relationships to their children and how they approach conversations about sex varies greatly from one parenting style to the next. A room full of parents who are proclaimed monogamists will disagree, perhaps passionately, on when and how to approach these topics with children. There will, similarly, be a variety of approaches among polyamorous parents too. Keep in mind that there are not wild orgies happening in front of the children. Nobody should be having sex in front of children regardless of the family dynamics.